An Act to amend the provisions for the local management of the borough of Silgo and to extend the rating powers of the Corporation of the borough and to extend the power of the Corporation to borrow and re-borrow moneys and to provide for the payment by the Corporation of the expenses incurred in meeting the demands of the county council of the county of Sligo and to confer on the Local Government Board for Ireland further powers of control in regard to the performance of their respective duties by the Corporation and the officers thereof and to amend the provisions relating to the election and duration in office of the aldermen and councillors of the borough and for other purposes.
The Sligo election was held under the Sligo Corporation Act 1918 (8 & 9 Geo. 5. c. xxiii), a local act passed in the UK Parliament under the sponsorship of the Sligo Ratepayers Association (SRA), an alliance of Protestants and businessmen which opposed the actions of the outgoing corporation.[3][4] The election under the 1918 act was exempt from the general postponement.[5]
In the 1919 election, the SRA ran a slate of 18 candidates (11 Protestant and 7 Catholic) and won 8 seats; Sinn Féin, Labour, and an Independent Nationalist had a majority of 13 seats between them.[6] It was the second STV election ever in Ireland; the first was in Dublin University at the November 1918 Westminster election. The outcome was seen as a vindication of STV, which was adopted for all Irish local authorities by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919, in time for the 1920 local elections.[3] The 1918 act envisaged triennial elections in Sligo,[7] as the 1919 act did throughout Ireland. In the event, the Irish War of Independence, Irish Civil War, and aftermath meant the next local elections were postponed until 1925.[8]
"8 & 9 Geo.V c.xxiii(P) Sligo Corporation Act, 1918". The local and private acts passed in the eighth and ninth years of the reign of His Majesty King George the fifth : being the eighth session of the thirtieth parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland : with an index. Eyre & Spottiswoode for William Richard Codling. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
^ abcd"Old Local Election Results". Irish Election Literature. 28 October 2011. p. Sligo Corporation Local Election Results 1919 to 2009. Retrieved 18 March 2015.